Mental Health: NHS endorsing a ‘Scroll-Free September’ campaign

The NHS has endorsed a mental health campaign that aims to see children giving up social media for a period of 30 days.

‘Scroll-Free September’ founded by The Royal Society for Public Health is the first time it has been tried anywhere in the world.

Claire Murdoch, NHS England’s national director for mental health, said: “We need to see concerted action, with everyone taking responsibility, including social media giants, so the NHS is not left to pick up the pieces of a mental health epidemic in the next generation.”

In a royal society poll, a third of social media users and half of young users, aged 18 to 34, said quitting social media for a month would help them to sleep, while also improving their real-world experiences and relationships.

The new initiative is also being backed by a number of other organisations including; NHS Scotland, Public Health England’s Rise Above campaign and MPs.

The campaign wants social media firms to do more to identify people with mental health problems and to provide advice to them, introduce pop-up heavy use warnings at, for example, two-hour intervals and for digitally-manipulated photographs to be tagged as such.

It is also proposed that children should have lessons in how to handle social media as part of compulsory Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) lessons.

To find out more and sign up to take part in the campaign from July 20, you can go to www.scrollfreeseptember.org

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